If Sega’s air-powered toy car was scaled up, it would travel at 750km/h

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Sega may still be best known for its video games consoles and associated gaming IP, but it also has a division focusing specifically on toys. Sega Toys Co. Ltd. has announced a new toy car that is unusual in so far as it is powered by air. It’s also impressively fast.

The Bakuon Bakusou Air Zero is a toy car kit consisting of a car body, a couple of clip on shells (blue and red), an air pump, and a sheet consisting of simple refueling instructions and a bit of road-textured background. The pump is used to transfer and store air in compressed form inside the car body. A piston is then able to move when the compressed air is discharged, which in turn powers the car and makes it move.

The toy car can reach speeds of up to 20km/h using this air engine. Sega says that if you scaled the Air Zero up to real-car size, it would be able to travel at 750km/h. Seeing as most road cars today will top out at below 250km/h, that’s quite impressive.

The Air Zero was released in Japan this week, with the full kit only costing around $15 making it a relatively cheap import if you want one to play with. It has already won a Nippon Toy Award 2015 in the boys’ toys category, but it does have some competition.

Tomy is introducing the “Linear Liner Superconducting Linear L0 Series Special Set” in September this year. It went one further in the Nippon Toy Awards 2015 and won the grand prize.

The Linear Liner set greatly differs from the Air Zero because instead of an air engine it relies on a linear motor that uses magnetic force meaning it floats while it moves. While that’s a cool feature, it can’t travel as fast as the Air Zero, only achieving a top speed of 6km/h, which if scaled up would be 500km/h. It also needs to be placed on a track, so it’s more like a train set and costs around $280 (ouch!).